Work Smart with Google Docs

Our Work Smart blog series continues with Google Docs. The aim with this series is to help companies to work smarter by getting the most out of the cloud computing power that’s already available to them.

With so many updates and additional features being added to G Suite (Google Apps for Work), it can be easy to overlook some simple example use-cases that might just make your work day a whole lot simpler. So let’s see what’s possible…

Employee Handbook

HR teams create and maintain a draft of all policies and guidelines in a Google Doc. They can then organize sections and add in a table of contents to make it easy to navigate the document. HR staff then add content and comments as appropriate throughout the document to ensure that nothing is missed out. As organisations are always evolving and developing new policies, these can be added to the handbook as and when required. This means that employees will always have the most up-to-date version that covers any queries or FAQs.

Benefits

HR staff always have access to make edits and include new policies.

Extensive revision history is saved, including dates, changes, and editor information. This shows how the handbook has developed over time and avoid any discrepancies.

Employees will always have accurate information on policies and best practices.

Dictate Notes

After an important meeting full of frantically scribbled notes, G Suite users can open a new Google Doc with their tablet, smartphone or laptop, and dictate all of their new information, elaborating on the important points from the meeting. Google’s voice-to-text feature automatically transcribes and inserts the notes into the document, which can then be shared with others who were in attendance to expand on as required.

Benefits

Avoid losing important data that was written on paper.

Improve team efficiency and cohesion with centralised meeting notes.

Use any device with a microphone to capture the notes.

Blogging & Content Marketing

For bloggers, the experience when writing matters. This includes the actual act of writing as well as everything else that goes into producing a blog post like research and sourcing imagery. Google Docs’ clean interface makes for a distraction-free writing experience and offers built-in search options through the Explore feature. This allows users to cite or insert article excerpts and images from the web without ever leaving your Docs tab.

Portability is also a very important part of writing, especially if you work outside of the usual office confines. Seeing as inspiration can strike at any moment, it makes sense to be able to start writing at any given moment. Whether that be from the laptop you began the article on, or on your mobile phone while commuting.

Freelance writers also may not use the same blogging platform or want to share access to their platform with others. Google Docs users simply share their files with others and grant them access to either; view, comment or edit if they want to collaborate. There are also a number of 3rd party tools available that allow users to upload their article directly to WordPress or other blogging platforms.

Benefits

Increase productivity by conducting research and sourcing material through Explore without the distraction of other browser tabs.

Pick up where you left off and continue writing on any device, from anywhere.

Professional & Branded Content

Google Docs provides a large library of templates in a variety of styles and designs, you can quickly select and easily edit to match your brand guidelines. These templates cover a range of different requirements, from Invoices and Proposals to Brochures and Newsletters. This means you can very quickly unify your company’s branding across all content.

Whether you create your own or make some tweaks to a pre-designed template, you can then save it in your Team Drive for use on all future documents, ensuring consistency throughout the organisation.

Benefits

All documentation has a professional feel and helps to strengthen the brand.

Increase efficiency by using the same layouts and formats, making it faster to create and easier to source important information.

Invoices and proposals can be sent with ease while allowing for comments and notes to be made on areas of interest.

More Than Just a Word Processor

With such a wide range of evolving features and uses, Google Docs has leveraged the power of artificial intelligence to meet the needs of any user. Thanks to machine learning, Docs can help you to become a better writer, while always improving and expanding its offerings with new features and 3rd party integrations. One of which is a grammar checker from Grammarly to make sure your blog posts, documents or proposals read perfectly. Another being DocuSign, a digital signature tool that lets you add your signature to any document you’re working on.

Contact

If you’re interested in learning more about how to get the most out of Google Docs or you’d just like to find out a bit more about G Suite (Google Apps for Work) and what it could offer, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via info@cobry.co.uk. We would be delighted to have a chat about how we could help.

Work Smart Blogs

If you would like to see some other examples of how G Suite can be used to help streamline your work day, you can find our other blog posts linked below.